Reaching the Throne
by adrian11
Summary: Trapped in his childhood body, Counter Guardian EMIYA has one chance to escape the living hell that is his afterlife: to reach the Throne of Heroes naturally. But becoming a hero in the 21st century is a dangerous balancing act between the worlds of magic and men. Features: Becoming a Revolutionary, pissing off the Mage's Association, chibi!Archer and dead Dead Apostles.
1. Awaiting one's Arrival

_Hero_

_Japan, Fuyuki City_

The Black Sun eclipsed the True Sun, as all the evils in the world cursed the earth with fire, and a foul black mud spewed from the once Holy Grail. Women and children and men screamed as they burned for the sins of a lost people. A child cried in a burning house. A mother ran out the door, and pretended not to hear the cries of her doomed child, sacrificing him in an attempt to save the baby in her arms. The house collapsed sideways onto her and the baby, taking the abandoned child within as well, and the family died together.

A man had escaped his home, but slipped and was now flailing painfully in the black tar, slowly burning as he writhed, a choked scream leaving his throat before the tar entered there, too, drowning him as he burned.

The black mud bubbled under the heat of the flames and the dead sun, evaporating into black mist as it eroded its victims lungs from within, each breath a death sentence, a twisted parody of the First World War.

In this wasteland, my step becomes the little-death between breaths. Natural selection on a mental and spiritual scale. Things like love, like friendship, like emotions, like names, they are of no import here. Only what is necessary remains, until I am no longer a person, I am an urge to survive. A brief twitch of Fight or Flight instinct before inevitable doom. And when that too dies, I am the nomadic step of our forefathers, that traveled with the herd for sustenance.

Empathy died first. _Help me! Oh god please help me! Someone! Anyone! _I survived. _No no no! Mommy! Please mommy I don't wanna die! _Each step towards salvation, each step less than what I was before. _AAAAaaarrrggghhh! _There is no other path. There is no one else. There is no hope. There is no pain. There is no death. There is the step. Everything else is meaningless. _It burns! It burns it burn it burns it burns IT BURNS!_ There is only me. Me. I can't save the others. I can only put one foot in front of the other.

Step. Step. Step.

Step.

Slip.

My foot slides on the slippery black mud, and I fall backward with a splash. The darkness consumes me, eats away at me, and I laugh. Not in happiness—that was one of the first to go. I laugh because there's nothing for it to consume. There's nothing for it here. I am empty. Even the step is gone, now. It tries to envelope me in its hatred, to make me suffer like it suffered, for me to join the chorus of a thousand painful screams.

In the alternate space that composes its being I stand to the side and watch in silence, as the other souls are consumed to power it. I watch as the being shows them the depths of human evil, of torture and rape and murder. Of wars fought for madmen, and wars fought for what is right, and how both bore equal horror. And while all but I are subsumed, I hear as the golden voice responds, "Yes. As the King of Heroes, I accept this evil. The world's evil is mine to bear, as I am its king, and it is my garden." The voices ego is too strong to be assimilated, too glorious and too ancient for all the world's evil to sway him, and so it rejects him from its body as I watch.

Is that all it takes to be freed from this place? To find your own voice? This observation is interesting, but having given up Survival, it is ultimately meaningless. I have no desire to escape, because I have no desire to live. But I am interested in that voice. Maybe if I had its power, I could've been the hero all those souls wished for. Perhaps I could've been their salvation. This is interesting, from a purely clinical point of view. All other company having been consumed or ejected, I express this sentiment to the being.

I open my mouth: "Hero. I wish to be a Hero."

The being was formless as anything else but the blackness that composed this place, but I feel as the formless mass turns it's entire focus to to me. Like the king before me, it first attempts to reject the foreign mind from its body, but its will only flows through me, as I am nothing. Desperate, it pushes me in a different metaphysical direction—Not towards the world, but towards God.

I drift towards the shining sun of blue light, that to me seems the closest anything will ever get to "god". I stretch my hand out. I freefall towards it—and slam right into someone's chest. Pushing it away—which only accomplishes pushing me back—I inspect the being before me. I do not look through my eyes, for they no longer feel truly my own. Instead, I look at us from our side, an observer in my own interaction with him, watching the small red headed boy speak with the warrior guarding the sun. They stand on nothing but thought, for that is all that exists here. He is tall, with a shock of white hair and tan well-travelled skin. He wears black armor, over which he draped a red coat. His arms are crossed, and his frown is pronounced under eagle eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

I continue to stare. Was he addressing me?

The man shakes his head. "It doesn't matter." And then he smiles, "If Alaya has given me the chance to kill you, then who am I to argue?"

I tilt my head. I did not understand. "Why are you so happy?" I ask.

He doesn't answer, as two swords, one black and one white, form in his hands. He takes a step forward—and hesitates. He mutters, "Something is wrong here. My luck has never been that good." He looks at me suspiciously for a second, "boy, do you remember your name?"

I do not, so I stay silent. In that damning silence, I feel something beautiful. A resonation. The longer I spend here, with this man, the more drawn to him I feel. As if both him and I are giving off radio waves of the same frequency, our souls the only antennas that can capture it. And as he can see me for what I am, now, an empty shell, I see him for who he is, a tortured soul tired from many, many battles. More battles than any one person has fought before. Centuries. Millenia. I could see the cracks, where he'd broken, but continued to be used, a toy to powers beyond our ken. He wanted release. That was why he wanted to kill me. He wanted to die. It was too much for any one person to bear.

But inside him, a world still burned, much like my world had burned. A world inside an egg, that conserved the most essential part of him. He, as a human being, was still intact, as long as that egg grew inside him. He could recover.

"I can help you." I told myself.

I shook my head, "There is no escape from Alaya's clutches. Not even a paradox will make that bitch let me go, I can see that now. Why else would she allow me to see you, unless she knew? There's nothing to be done."

I smile. "She's not omniscient, nor is she malicious. Maybe she wants you to escape." Our speech patterns begin to assimilate.

Again, I shook my head. "Not at the cost of her tool. The rest of humanity will always come first, and I'm one of her enforcers. I get stronger with each battle. That's why she wants me."

We're getting closer now. It's the influence of this place, confusing existences. Our concepts are so fundamentally the same, it doesn't see us as separate. And what it "see"'s? That's reality. But we're not one yet. I put my small hand in his big one. Palm to palm. His eclipses mine, and his fingers are long and calloused.

I finally respond, "Who said she'll lose us? She wants us to get stronger, to better protect humanity. You can get another shot. You can make things right."

"But what about you?" I ask

"I am empty," I respond. "You will fill me, like molten steel in a mold. I am not gone. I'm not anything."

Where our hands met, they shined with blue light. And like a vortex, we were twisted into it, whisked away from the Blue Sun—That I now recognized as how my mind chose to perceive something as incomprehensible as the root—and into a barren world where swords grew like trees, and continent-shifting gears turned lethargically in the sky. We stood back to back on a hill of swords.

"It's beautiful." I say.

"It's all I have." He responds.

Fire races inwardly from the edges of this infinite world as it tucks itself back into our soul, until the fire hits us and he falls into me, and I'm alone, standing in the black tar of the end of the world, armageddon still in progress. I stare down at my paradoxal hands, tan from years of practicing magecraft yet the size of a child's. Against my will darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision, and I feel the distinct sensation of falling backward before I lose all conscious thought.

/

A blur, materializing into the smiling face of a man I thought I'd never see again. Kiritsugu. He must have slogged through the mud at the slightest hint that someone still lived. That idiot. That magnificent, selfless idiot. He takes Avalon out of his body, solidifying it in his hands from golden light, and places it inside me without a second thought.

I was submerged in Darkness once again.

/

I woke up to the click of a pistol being loaded. Click.

"I know you're awake."

I tried to move my arms, but found them firmly bound. Additionally, I could smell the magecraft that characterized the creation of bounded fields, and guessed that even if I could break through using a Noble Phantasm, it wouldn't be nearly fast enough to escape a bullet through the skull, something I'd rather avoid if at all possible. So. That left negotiation as the preferred means of escape. I'd never been very good at negotiating. Probably due to my low tolerance for bullshit.

Opening my eyes and ceasing the slowing of breath I'd used in an attempt to veil my consciousness, I replied, "What, no breakfast in bed?"

The youth of my voice surprised me. I sounded—well, young. Really young.

My kidnapper snapped clearly unamused. "Answer me. What are you? I can tell you're not human. Not completely, anyway."

Now that surprised me. Not human? I was starting to get ahold of my situation, but was still dangerously uninformed. Still, I could deduce.

Something in this timeline had changed during the fuyuki fire. My younger self somehow interacted with The Grail, which combined with Angra Mainyu's nature as an answer to mankind's wish to shirk responsibility for All The World's Evil, resulted in his proximity to the root, also known as Akasha, the metaphysical collection of all knowledge. I myself had been guarding it from any intruders who might be attempting to achieve omnipotence, as I'd done on a few other occasions. That's the kind of thing I do on my off time, when my spirit isn't being used to slaughter all humans in a given area for the survival of mankind.

It's no tropical Island, but as a Counter Guardian you take what you can get. No matter how people like to dress it up, Counter Guardians know the true face of humanity, and Alaya is a cruel mistress.

From what I understand—And I am so _not _the person to ask about the various laws that govern metaphysics—the resonance between our two identical souls, rapidly accelerated by the presence of the root, fused us together. Of course, I know just enough to know that goes against a whole host of laws of magecraft, half of which I'm probably not even aware. In addition, this seemed more akin to possession than anything else. At that point in his life, the existence that was Emiya Shirou was completely empty, mentally and spiritually, and as a Counter Guardian with millenia experiences, indisputably higher on the spiritual totem pole, my spirit must have simply overwhelmed his and took over.

But if Kiritsugu—and this could only be him, who else would hold a gun to what appears to be a seven year old kid?—was so sure of my inhumanity, the spiritual fusion must have carried over to my physical body somehow. That wasn't unusual: the possessed normally acquired some of the physical attributes of their possessors, and I'd seen people whose origins were awakened become almost unrecognizable.

My musings were interrupted by the feeling of a pistol being shoved none too gently against the back of my head. Ah, yes, the interrogation. I sighed aloud. The situation was still so unsure, my best bet was to tell the truth and hope to convince him of my legitimacy through the secrets I'd learned of him as his child. Things he wouldn't have told anyone else alive.

"You may call me Emiya." Ah, that got a reaction. I fought valiantly to restrain my smirk as I felt the pistol almost fall from his hands. "For simplicity's sake, let's just say I'm your son from the future."

He recovered quickly. As expected from the magus-killer, mind tricks wouldn't get me very far. "Knowing my name doesn't impress me. Tell me what manner of creature you are, and what you were doing in the Fuyuki Fire, and I might decide not to blow your brains out."

"The Fuyuki Fire? You mean where Angra Mainyu was almost born into the world through the Holy Grail?" His grip tightened. "Just listen for a second, and I'll prove to you I speak the truth. I know all about the Holy Grail War. I know the identity of your Saber, King Arturia," I couldn't see his face, but I knew my precision of Saber's sexe surprised him somewhat, "because I summoned her in the fifth Holy Grail War ten years from now. If this timeline had gone as it was supposed to, you would've found a regular human with some magical potential in the fire. Having lost all his memories in the fire, you would have named him Shirou, and offered to adopt him. From then on, he would be known as Emiya Shirou.

"I'd beg you to teach me the basics of magecraft, but you're almost as stubborn as I was. Eventually you'd give in, but by then it'd be too late to teach me anything meaningful. Three years from now, you'll die from the curse Angra Mainyu placed on you. It's faint now, but I'm sure you can already feel it corrupting your bone marrow, insidiously filling your veins with poison. Screwing with Magic Circuits. That'll only get worse over time.

Before your death we sit out on the porch, and talk. About your life. About your regrets." I hadn't actually known this at the time, but would learn of it years later, "about Ilya."

Now that got a reaction. A slightly faster inhalation of breath. It wasn't much to go on, but I'd keep talking until I had convinced him.

"She's with the Einzbern's right now. I'm not sure how long I've been out, but I bet they've already refused you access to her, haven't they? It's only reasonable, after all. You destroyed the Grail, their best shot at reclaiming the Third Magic. Magi aren't known for their forgiving hearts. You'll keep on running missions to find her, to get her back, for the rest of your life. Unsuccessfully." My words hung in the air like the sound of a gong, sucking all of his half-made plans and far flung ideas to reclaim his daughter out of existence. "You're weakened, and they've secluded her in their castle in Germany, which has bounded fields a thousand times stronger than the ones here. You can't do it alone."

The implicit offer hung in the air between us. He pulled back the gun, but it was probably still aimed at me. Cautious.

"I admit, your in depth knowledge of the situation of a secretive Magi family like the Einzbern's is impressive. I didn't think anyone was aware I had a daughter." Yeah, when you had enemies vying for your death, a weak spot like a daughter is something you keep on the down low. "But nothing you've said couldn't be discovered by an outside party, especially a supernatural one."

Well, that was fine. I still had a trump card, after all.

"That wasn't the only thing you told me on the porch. You told me something else, something far more marking. You told me your dream." Check and mate. "To become a superhero. To be an ally of justice. To save people. You told me, the misery that awaits one who chooses such a fate. That it's impossible to save anyone without sacrificing someone else." I smiled bitterly. It was one of the great ironies of life.

From father to son, we humans always make the same mistakes. We grow up, and our father's tell us what they discovered during their life, they give us the key, the path. And we throw it away. We think they're wrong, that we know better. That we're different, that the world is different. They convince themselves that that knowledge is somehow outdated, that their elders don't know what they're talking about. We move forward, wide-eyed and ignorant. And the world beats the truth into us, and we find as we get older that more and more of the things our fathers told us ring true.

Just in time to have sons of our own, who think we're wrong, that they know better. That they're different, that the world is different. They convince themselves that that our knowledge is somehow outdated, that we don't know what we're talking about.

And the wheel keeps spinning.

"I didn't listen." I said. "After you died, I continued to try to bring your dream to fruition. Then the Fifth Holy Grail War happened 50 years early. I won it, like you did, and me and Saber destroyed the Grail. After that I trained. I trained every day and every night to achieve my full potential. To bring my few talents to fruition. And I did. I became strong.

Then I went out into the world, and tried to be a hero. I followed in your footsteps. I made tough choices. I felt like I was doing something, like I was making the world you'd dreamed of, one tiny life at a time." I sighed. I articulated my greatest regret. "Until my strength wasn't enough, and 100 innocents lives hung in the balance. That's when Alaya came to me with an offer. 'If you promise me your life after death, I will give you the power to save this village,' she told me. I agreed without hesitation. It seemed like a win-win, at the time, not only did I get to save these people, but I could continue to save people even after I died." I paused, the silence between us soothing, somehow, like two people who'd gone through similar experiences and knew the same struggles, the same disappointments, the same happiness. It was only logical, after all. I'd inherited my dream from him.

"Needless to say, I saved the village. I died a few years later, trying to end a war in the middle-east. I succeeded, but in the process was betrayed by my allies and set up as the mastermind behind the war. I made a very good scapegoat." I remarked detachedly. "I smiled when they executed me. I had no regrets." Another pause. I'd never really… told anyone my life's story before. I don't know why I was telling Kiritsugu. I didn't need to tell him in this much detail.

But some part of me wanted to. Wanted to confide in someone my regrets, my life. Wanted to show Kiritsugu what his dream had done to me, what that one moment under the full moon had resulted in. I _wanted_ him to know.

"Life as a Counter Guardian —If you want to call it that—is shit. They're not heroes. They're natural disasters, machines controlled by Alaya sent in when shit hits the fan so _freaking_ hard that the _world might end_. And when things get to that point, there are no rules. There's no negotiation. As a Counter Guardian, Alaya assigned me the function 'to slaughter all humans at a particular location when mankind is at the threshold of complete self destruction'. This has been my personal hell for millennia. I can barely remember my life as a human. Only certain events, certain moments."

"I thought that would be my life until humanity became extinct. I hoped for it sometimes, in my darker moments. That everything would just… die. And I'd be free." And suddenly, despite myself, I heard my voice become somehow… hopeful. "But now I might have a chance to escape my fate as a Counter Guardian. When Angra Mainyu was almost incarnated and attempted to consume him, my younger self somehow skipped past the lesser Grail and came close to the Root, which I'd been guarding. And now, somehow, we've been fused. That's why you detect me as being more than just a human. Because this body is at least half spiritual. I think my human body may have died in the fire. If that's the case, then the closest approximation to _what_ I am would be an embodied spirit."

Neither of us said anything for a long minute. I was aware that my life's story was hard to believe. Hell, I could barely believe it happened, and I'd been there. But it was the truth. Unaltered, I'd opened myself up to the man who made me who I am today. Whether he believed me or not remained to be seen.

"That is… a lot to take in." Kiritsugu finally said.

"Yeah," I responded with my usual eloquence.

I felt him place a hand on the whatever was binding me in place, and it released, along with any bounded fields. I moved my arms and brought them before me, opening and closing my hand to regain blood flow to my finger. I stood up and finally took a good look around.

We were in the shack where I'd summoned Saber, all those years ago. He was using it as a workshop. I turned around and examined the man before me. He was taller than I remembered him, back straight, less sickly. I stuck out my hand in the universal sign of introduction. He stared at it briefly like it was an alien thing, before grabbing it. We shook hands.

"Emiya Shirou. It's been a pleasure." I said only somewhat sarcastically.

"Kiritsugu." He responded.

Our eyes met, steel gray and a sharp, eagle brown.

/

I dreamed in red and black waves of battle, swords and faces blurring into each other like impressionist paintings.

I woke up with my nose to the floor, having evidently tumbled violently out of bed. Getting up lethargically, rubbing one eye, I was only slightly troubled by Kanshou stabbed deep into my pillow. Some people have problems with sleepwalking—I happen to have problems with sleep stabbing. To each his own. I dissolved it as I exited the room.

As I strolled through the hall, I grabbed a white towel out of the compartment, absently lamenting the fact that Kiritsugu would in all likelihood not share my indifference towards my sleeping habits. Oh well. I'd deal with that when I came to it.

Still half asleep, I turned on the hot water, and as I waited for it to heat glanced at myself in the mirror. A short boy of maybe seven or eight with shocking white hair and tan, tropical skin stared back at me. His eyes were steel gray. His features were slightly sharper, slightly more delicate than I remember. On his upper cheek bones, under and slightly to the side of each eye he had a small sideways comma-like mark in a deep tribal red. His body was also marked by deep tribal red lines, like veins or ley lines but sharper, more geometric like circuits. They ran down his arms and chest, across his ribs, and I supposed they continued down his back and legs. Down my back and legs.

Though my constitution appeared to be that of a young human child, I could feel the supernatural strength ringing through every cord of muscle. My musculature was not excessive, as this body hadn't even begun puberty and the testosterone fueled muscle growth that entailed, but it wasn't anything to scoff at. I had very little fat, and could see my ribs as well as the light marks of taut abdominal muscles. My arms were well defined, and my collarbone easily visible. Yes, besides the decreased reach, I don't think this would encumber me from fighting at my best.

Still seeing what was essentially a cute, chibified version of my older self was most definitely one of the most bewildering experiences of my life to date. And coming from me, that meant something. I've seen a female King Arthur fawn over a little lion stuffed animal.

As I entered the shower, it dawned on me slowly that this phenomenon, which as far as I knew was unique, might have a lot of symptoms and side-effects I'd be exploring for a long time to come. Most likely, I'd never completely understand the mechanics behind it. Still, I wasn't completely hopeless. I knew for a fact that it most closely resembled a feat accomplished by the Third Magic, which pretty much covered anything having to do with materialization of the soul. The last Third Magic user having died centuries ago, the one who might best tell me what to expect was possibly Gilgamesh, who I knew had been materialized into a corporeal form by the Grail in much the same way I had. An embodied spirit. Anchored to this world and unable to etherize, yet retaining all the qualities and abilities of the Servant—Or in my case Counter Guardian—they had been made from.

And I was a kid. I dearly hoped that I would continue to grow, even as a spirit. I'm not sure what I'd do if I found out I'd be staying seven years old for the rest of my life, however long it turned out to be. I found new sympathy for Ilya, the mature woman trapped in a prepubescent body.

Putting a pause to my musings, I applied body wash liberally, hopefully getting rid of the smoke smell that'd been following me since my recovery. Closing my eyes, I determined that I wouldn't get out of the shower until I'd come up with an answer to my main problem, which basically boiled down to _what the hell am I supposed to do now?_

The shower was always where I'd come up with my best ideas, though cooking and staring into camp fires came as close seconds. I hoped its ideaphoric1 properties would aid me now.

I rejoined the musings I'd had the night before, staring into the ceiling wondering if this body even needed to sleep. There were basically two ways I could play this.

1. I could kill myself, as I'd originally planned if I ever got the opportunity, and hope to create a big enough paradox to erase my existence as a Counter Guardian.

2. I could try to enter the Throne of Heroes through natural processes, and escape my existence as a Counter Guardian that way.

I knew from what I'd observed in that place that though Alaya often used Heroic Spirits as Counter Guardians, she only ever copied them for her use. As a result the Heroic Spirit would stay pristine, never receiving the memories of the copy.

That sounded… blissful.

But now I encountered a more complex problem: How would I become a Heroic Spirit, in this day and age?

A Heroic Spirit is a being that accomplished some great achievement in life, such as saving the world and, after their death, became the object of worship and lore. Now the great achievement part had never been a problem. As a sixteen year-old brat I'd basically already saved the world once, by stopping Angra Mainyu incarnation onto the earth, though admittedly that'd been with the aid of Saber, a Servant. Throughout my life, I estimate I'd saved… wow. I actually had no idea. My memories from my actual life are blurry, but from what I could gather… maybe 10 000? 100 000? How could I count how many had been saved by stopping that war at the cost of my own life? Plus however many countless people I'd saved by killing Dead Apostles?

I didn't regret the amount of people I'd saved in life. If I had to, I'd probably do the same thing. I'm an idiot that way, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. It's just that damn contract with Alaya that I regretted, that betrayal of my ideal in order to abide by them, it was… torturous.

So no, modesty aside, it wasn't the great achievement criteria that was difficult. It was getting recognized for it. With the secrecy of magecraft in place to conserve mysteries, and the upswing of scientific discovery and almost proportional upswing of skepticism towards superstition and the supernatural, someone like me who's main "extraordinary" skill utilized magecraft would have a hard time getting recognized for it.

On top of that, the nature of a "hero" in this day and age has changed a lot from the glorious warriors they had once been. Ever since the advent of the Cold War, wars were no longer the messy, glorious battles they had been. This was the age of the shadow wars, of highly trained, highly secretive agents using powerful technology to hack, to sabotage. Information was the name of the game.

I myself had fought mostly from the shadows. I'd combated supernatural threats, rogue magi and Dead Apostles, things which the majority of the population didn't even know existed. Sure, I'd built up quite the reputation among magi, but they were such a tiny community, I doubted even the greatest among them could ascend into legend. When I did fight in the public eye, I flittered from battlefield to battlefield, never giving information about myself, always trying to keep publicity at a minimum lest foreign governments try to look deeper into my activities. And the one time I'd really gotten myself involved and drifted slightly into the public eye, it hadn't exactly worked out well for me.

But even on the front line, when was the last time a soldier ascended into legend? Had stories told to children around a campfire based on their exploits?

No, most heroes of that sort were from times long past. The heroes of today were great scientists, recognized as uniquely brilliant and changing the lives of billions, or else they were great leaders, who'd altered the face of the map.

Neither of which were my my areas of expertise. I mainly specialized in blowing up shit that should be impossible for me to blow up.

Still, it was far from impossible. One of the greatest heroes of the 20th century was Che Guevara. That was the type of fame I had to aim for, if I wanted this to be a sure thing. Che Guevara was a saint in the majority of South America. His face was a symbol of revolution around the world. He had tales told of his exploits, of his generous heart and great passion for justice and equality. He was a Revolutionary. He changed the fate of a country, and altered the political state of the whole of South America.

If I wanted to ascend, I needed to be on his level. And I'd have to do all that while hiding my most powerful gift and ability, the little potential I'd refined through endless drive into something almost unique. Something only seven others of my species had achieved, in our entire existence. It was something I was proud of, justifiably so, and admitting that it may not be my most useful tool in this particular situation was… difficult, to say the least. But I could deal. It just meant I'd have to be more subtle about it.

One option had a low probability of success, and the other was almost impossible but a sure thing. I knew which one I'd pick. I'd always had more faith in my ability to change things then my understanding of metaphysics, and that's what I would stake my afterlife on.

And now that I'd decided, my destiny was unmovable, my will imperturbable. My objective was sure, and I could feel the future in my weary hands, ready to be molded by an impossible will. It took a millenia of hell for me to admit the last time I was wrong.

I had always been a very stubborn man.


	2. Storming Einzbern Castle

_1 year later_

I snuggled deeper into my coat as I watched Kiritsugu work in the snow. We were both adequately dressed for the overbearingness of a german winter in matching heavy duty trench coats, fur lining the hood. The very subdued grayish beige color wasn't my first pick—I'd learned over the years that I'd never be subtle, mostly because of my height and coloring, and that it was best to simply own it and go for bold, intense colors such as red and black rather than make any attempt at blending in.

When I told him just that, he stared at me for a long moment, as if I'd insulted his religion. 'A trenchcoat is the epitome of true professionalism, and an essential accessory to any man of action. Flashy colors are unnecessary in a garment already so steeped in an aura of competence and danger.' He'd told me with intense eyes, and a low, grave tone.

Which was really just Kiritsugu's way of telling me trenchcoats made him look so badass, adding colors in there was completely unnecessary, which is a very solid point I'd found difficult to mount any cohesive argument against.

Besides, I wasn't really interested in getting any red trench coat besides the original Ciel had gifted me all those years ago at a curry stand. It would be too much like cheating on a beloved spouse: though pleasurable and fun in the short-term, it would inevitably leave you unsatisfied with a bad taste in your mouth. A little fun can't compete with true love.

Returning from my musings, I went back to watching him futilely fiddle with the invisible barrier before him. I ventured only slightly impatiently, "Need some help over there?" I tried to keep my voice soft so as not to offend his pride.

"No," He stated as gruffly as ever.

Ok then, screw politeness.

"You didn't succeed the last time you tried, and you had a whole three years. What makes you think this time will be any different?"

"Maybe I could find out, if you stopped distracting me with inane questions." He replied.

I stayed quiet briefly. No matter how insensitive I sometimes portrayed myself to be, I knew it must be hard for a man like him to accept he needed help with his daughter's rescue. That, paired up with the sympathy of one professional to another at the clear decline in his hard won skills held my tongue.

It was hard for him to accept the decline in his ability caused by Angra Mainyu's curse. For a consumate professional like Kiritsugu, it was a fate worse than death. But I knew it was only a matter of time before he ceded to my capability in this matter. He may be proud of his skills, but if forced to pick between pride and his daughter, he'd pick Ilya every time.

As predicted, he eventually conceded, "This bounded field is strong, I doubt I'd be able to crack it even in my prime."

I nodded, stepping forward and removing my gloves to better handle what came next. Staring at the empty space before me, I had to admit that it was probably one of the best human-made bounded fields I'd ever seen. At least up in the top ten. Though we were certain of the Einzbern castle's location, there appeared to be nothing here but snow and some harsh mountain tundra stretching out before us.

But that was just an illusion. Closing my eyes, I muttered under my breath, "Trace, on. I am the bone of my sword." A two meter long spear materialized in my hands. I had first seen it when I'd dreamed of Saber's experiences in the Fourth War, and her almost deadly encounter with the fierce Diarmuid Ua Duibhne and his dual spears, one of which I made use of today. Gae Dearg: The Crimson Rose of Exorcism.

Made by the Faeries—And thus complex enough that it was simpler to simply say the first line of my aria rather than go through the pain of tracing it alone—it was one of my favorite Anti-magi weapons because of its handy ability to simply cut through all forms of magical enhancement or manifestations of magic. Even extremely old, extremely complex bounded fields.

With a familiarity that belonged to another, I stabbed forward and cut a large circle into the empty space before me, watching with fascination as the air split like a solid thing. Where my blade cut, the cold tundra disappeared to reveal a magnificent, medieval looking castle.

Sharing a glance with my accomplice, we dashed into the hole before it got the chance to close up, blurring into existence on the other side. The air around the castle was warm and comfortable, and the rapid and unexpected change in temperature was slightly disorienting. I glanced back as the hole closed itself quickly, isolating us once again from the icy tundra outside. Our escape.

Glancing back at Kiritsugu, I found him staring at the castle, as inscrutable as ever.

"Change of plan." He told me, still staring at the castle.

"Change of plan?" I repeated incredulously. "No. No change of plan. Execution of plan."

"Change of plan," he repeated maddeningly. "You retrieve Ilya and get her to safety. I— I will kill Jubstacheit."

"Killing Jubstacheit wasn't part of the plan." I remarked.

Seeing that I wasn't going to let this go, he glanced at me and explained.

"I knew you wouldn't go along with my original plan. But Jubstacheit can't be allowed to live: he is relentless. He won't give up his prized creation, Ilya is too important for him to ever let go. He'll pursue us—pursue her, for the rest of her life, unless I kill him."

I narrowed my eyes. "Our roles should be switched. You know I'm the more able fighter between us." That was an understatement; having retained the majority of my abilities as a Counter Guardian and a Servant, my capability in battle was so above most humans that even comparing the two was laughable

Of course, there would always be exceptions. In fact, when dealing with Magi, it was mostly the exceptions one had to watch out for. Those were the dangerous ones.

"That's exactly why I'm putting you in charge of protecting my child. I'll be dying in a few years anyway. Better to go out giving my daughter the freedom to not be hunted down and used as a tool." Stubborn as ever. For a moment, my desire to protect him warred with my knowledge that time was of the essence, and time spent arguing was time our enemies would spend preparing for whatever breached their bounded field.

"If you die, I will be extremely unhappy with you." I whispered furiously, knowing I'd be unable to convince him. Deciding not to waste any time the enemy could be using to discover our location, I blurred towards my objective.

Carried on the wind, I could almost hear him whisper, "I know."

/

This wasn't his style.

He was a mercenary, an assassin. He laid traps, planned ambushes, utilized guerrilla tactics to damage and confuse.

He didn't storm castles by himself, backed up only by his 8 year old son from another timeline. No matter how competent or powerful that eight year-old turned out to be.

Kiritsugu sprinted through the halls, navigating the maze of rooms and doors from memory. He wasn't a sentimental sort of man, but this castle brought to surface memories of happier times, when his dreams could still come to fruition and his wife and daughter were both alive and well. It was different, now. Now, the castle was darker, stuffier, more claustrophobic. It oppressed its residents with medieval gray brick walls and dour looking portraits of magi long dead.

Kiritsugu finally slowed when he arrived at his destination: the atrium. The location of their first meeting, and no doubt where both expected to be their last. And lo and behold, in the center of the atrium, his back turned, stood Jubstacheit von Einzbern, just as Kiritsugu remembered him. Clad in a form fitting white suit, the patriarch of the Einzbern was built like a wall, shoulders broad like an ox and height towering above mortal men. He was imposing, with hair white as snow and the beard of a sage. Over two centuries old and face utterly deprived of laugh lines, the magus patriarch's eyes showed no light of senility, only a ruthless, ancient cleverness. Still turned around, he swirled a glass of red wine in one hand and stared into it contemplatively. Kiritsugu stood in the doorway, justly weary.

"I did not expect you to bypass the bounded field surrounding this estate." Jubstacheit remarked casually, his simultaneously smooth and harsh voice echoing deeply from his barrel chest. "That is no mean feat, and something I thought beyond even your vaunted expertise. That is my mistake, I suppose—when I searched for a candidate to represent the Einzbern in the Fourth Holy Grail War, I hired the best there was. It was foolish of me to doubt my own judgement—Wouldn't you say, magus-killer?"

Kiritsugu stayed stoically silent, his stare hard. This confrontation had been a long time coming, and letting his opponent prattle on could only be to his advantage. In all his confrontations with the occult, he'd learned a thing or two about magus culture. Despite their secrecy, their subtlety left much to be desired. A magus loves to hear himself talk, to explain his mysteries in the midst of battle, so his genius could be admired before he ended his oponent's life. Any information Jubstacheit was willing to part with could only be to Kiritsugu's advantage, especially bereft of his normal mode of operations as he was.

Silence dragged across the room like a dead body, before Jubstacheit broke it, his voice now quiet, a furious whisper. "Well, I suppose it is irrelevant. No amount of competence will save you." The glass gained a hairline fracture, before his hand became a fist, crushing the glass and sending shattered fragments flying across the room, red wine spilling over the floor like fresh blood.

Slowly, the Old King turned around. He imposed the entirety of his focus unto Kiritsugu, his eyes screaming death, his attention like a physical weight that pinned lesser men to the floor. "At first, I was content to simply punish you by isolating you from your daughter, to watch your life fade away between vain attempts to find her, and then sacrifice your offspring to reclaim the Holy Grail, as is our right. I was content to make her hate you, to make her hate everything you've done and everything you stand for, to mold her into a perfect tool for the Einzbern. She will be what Irisviel could have been before you corrupted her—a masterpiece, the perfect vessel for the Grail." His smile turned blood thirsty. "_But now, now that you've dared enter the sacrosanct territory of the Einzbern, a traitor who betrayed me? I will crush you where you stand, with my full might! Prepare yourself, magus-killer! Witness the true strength of the Einzbern!_"

That was all he needed to hear.

Utterly unaffected, his eyes showing nothing, not fear nor hate nor anything but the cold resolve of a man with nothing to lose, a true practiced killer, Kiritsugu brought up the contender and shot the mystic code bequeathed unto him by his old teacher: the Origin Bullet. Containing ground up bone from two of his ribs, the origin bullets were more innately connected with him than any other magecraft, embodying and weaponizing his deepest nature and unavoidable fate: to sever and bind.

More than simply destruction and rebirth, his origin carried with it the implication of inexorable change—just as a string once cut will never be returned to its previous state, once bound back together it is knotted, its natural flow of energy twisted and deformed.

And the same applied to anything struck by this bullet. It would overwrite its true state with the concept _to sever and bind. _Against a regular human, it was only a tad more effective than a regular bullet; however against a magus, it carried with it the promise of certain death. It need only touch the magus or his magecraft in order to kill them, severing their magic circuits and binding them together improperly, the uncontrolled flow of energy in a human body resulting in a long and often painful death.

Nothing less than most struck by them deserved.

It was because of his confidence in his mystic code's power that Kiritsugu didn't react when the floor before Jubstacheit came up in the form of a defensive wall, blocking the bullet. It wasn't because of any insufficiency of caution that the muscles in his arms and back relaxed—just slightly—when he saw the conceptual armament had struck true. It was simply cold, hard logic. Logic and experience.

Only one other had escaped the origin bullet's insidious effect, and that had been through the use of command spells, which alone approached the capabilities of true magic.

So you see, when stone spikes exploded from the floor towards him, it is through no fault of his own that, caught by surprise, he only just leapt aside fast enough to avoid being skewered. The spike struck his left shoulder, incapacitating it for the length of this battle. Kiritsugu grit his teeth, grabbing the hole in his shoulder to slow the bleeding. The wall before Jubstacheit melted back into the floor.

"Truly, it was the height of foolishness to attack me within my own territory. This castle has stood since the Age of Gods, when the Einzbern were at their height and the Third magic was our plaything! Within this place, my powers are unsurpassed! This entire castle is my workshop, and all matter in it under my dominion. Utilizing my own magic circuits is unnecessary, I can simply draw from the energy from the castle itself. Your trump card is useless here!"

As he spoke, the floor undulated like liquid and arms rose, dozens of rock fists roaring towards him. Gritting his teeth, Kiritsugu dashed away, circling the magus king, whispering under his breath, "Time alter— double accel". Suddenly faster than the eye could track, Kiritsugu pulled out his Walther WA2000 with one hand, strong enough to pierce bulletproof armor even without magical reinforcement, he shot the semi-automatic at the magus and any arms that got too close, tearing them apart with focused fire. Around Jubstacheit a five-foot deep stone wall rose from the floor, protecting him in a makeshift bomb-shelter.

Kiritsugu ducked and dodged between the stone arms,dashing up the staircase to get some higher ground. On the indoor balcony he caught a view of the battlefield, the wall surrounding the man. Not high enough to obscure a view at this angle. Inside the 360 degree wall the man stood still as a stature, utterly devoid of life or—

He ducked as he heard something almost remove his head from his shoulders. Aiming backwards at Jubstacheit, he tried to shoot but was punched in the back with a fist like a freight train, throwing him off the balcony and onto the floor and story below. The Magus followed him down, his impact leaving cracks in the floor. Kiritsugu rolled with the fall, and peppered Jubstacheit's position with fire. A stone wall once again rose to protect him from the reinforced bullets. Retreating while he pinned his enemy behind his defence, Kiritsugu threw a grenade, reinforced with magecraft, over the wall and covered his eyes.

He felt the force of the explosion roll through him, its heat expanding like a dying star, and heard the magus patriarch below in agony. Opening his eyes, Kiritsugu realized the wall had flowed like a living thing to protect its master. It was burned charcoal black and cratered, but otherwise intact.

Irritated by the magus' quick defence, he rapidly planned a new course of action, but was interrupted by the smell of burnt meat. The wall retreated back into the floor, leaving soot marks, and Kiritsugu finally saw his enemy.

Burned from the waist up, the man's right arm was blown off at the elbow and the entire right side of his face was covered in third degree burns. His white jacket was in tattered, revealing a physique like a professional wrestler's, the man's towering frame covered in bulging, bear like muscles straining to be released, stained with splotches of burnt skin.

But the man's face was as solemn as ever, showing no signs he even realized he was injured. The muscles in his face scrunching together where his eyebrows used to be, he spoke.

"The Einzbern's are a family of Alchemists. Having lost control of the spiritual—having lost the Third Magic we strived for—we sought to understand the spiritual through the physical. We learned to manipulate the natural world as we once manipulated the spiritual one."

He held up his stump, and Kiritsugu watched in growing horror as the bone lengthened and muscle regenerated over it, tendons and ligaments reforming, skin finally covering the bulging cords of muscle as his hand reformed from the magic of the castle itself. As this happened the splotches of burnt skin on his face and chest grew smaller, healing at an astounding rate as new hair bloomed.

"It is as I told you: in my workshop, I am unassailable. Under normal circumstances, this rapid creation and formulation of biological matter is impossible for me to achieve—as of yet—but here, anything I conceive I can create. Even an aria is unnecessary. Through an effort of will, I can manipulate the smallest components of our universe to my pleasure. I can not be killed, I can not be stopped. Your fate is sealed, magus-killer, and I am your executioner."

The living concrete that made this castle creeped up his legs, covering him in a stone armor. Punching the floor, gray stone flowed up his arms as well, encapsulating his head and shoulders in a large, rhino-like armor. He now stood 8 feet tall, only his face uncovered.

"Come, magus-killer, show me the resolve with which you destroyed my grail!"

And the great behemoth flexed his legs and charged, sliding over the stone like it was ice. Kiritsugu stood in place, his finger on the trigger as the man rushed him. Jubstacheit covered his eyes with one armored arm and continued like armor piercing rounds were nothing but a stiff breeze.

Dammit. He hadn't wanted to resort to this. Just maintaining Double Accel was a struggle, he wasn't sure his body'd be able to take any more punishment. He still had Avalon inside him, but without a connection to Saber it was limited in what it could do at the moment. His mouth formed the words, "Time Alter— Tripl -

He coughed up blood, hunching over. Dammit. The curse was weakening him. His circuits were literally decaying inside his soul. His body was getting corrupted, and all this physical exdertion was hurting it, speeding up the curse. He estimated he'd already lost about a year, just this battle.

He looked up just in time to get close lined in the stomach, his entire frame folding in on itself from the force of the punch. Ribs cracked painfully, and it was only through reinforcement that they weren't caved in. His mouth opened in shock, blood flying.

The Einzbern magus grabbed him by the back of his coat, and threw him in the air, before grabbing him and breaking him over his knee. Crack.

Kiritsugu fell to the ground. He struggled to stand, but Jubstacheit simply stomped on his chest again. Kiritsugu once again coughed up blood. He tried to move the stone behemoth's foot, weakly grabbing onto it with trembling arms.

"You are weak, magus-killer. Your ideals are weak. Your resolve is weak. Your dream is weak. And it will die with you. I will win the Holy Grail War with your daughter, and when she dies to assure I gain the Heaven's Feel, she will die hating you. For abandoning her. For being too weak to save her. She hates you magus-killer. And you will die without ever seeing her again."

The foot crushed down harder.

Kiritsugu felt black start invade his vision. His head swooned dizzily as he struggle to breath.

"Sh- Shi… rou," he hacked out before he fell off the earth.


	3. The Emiya Family

I forewent stealth entirely as I raced through the castle towards one of the three locations Kiritsugu had assured me might be Ilya's room. Rushing past various halls and doors, using the cursory mental map I'd memorized from Kiritsugu's incomplete layout of the castle, I finally arrived at the first, a giant oaken door. Opening it, my hope for a flawless mission was immediately crushed: it was dark, empty, and abandoned.

Next room. Again I made my way through the maze of hallways, again I opened the door only to find the room empty.

My options were rapidly dwindling.

And as I'd dreaded the entire way there, the last and final room was as destitute of petite white-haired girls as the first two. After opening the door I'd just stood there for a full minute, staring at the empty room, unwilling to believe that things were already going this wrong.

Shit. I wasn't made for search and rescue. Wasn't my style. Oh sure, I'd conducted and organized my fair share while I was alive, but I was really more of a point and shoot type of guy. Simpler. Less room for error. Or at least, when an error did occur, it was normally just my own life on the line, and not that of my father and his estranged daughter.

Closing my eyes, I sunk into a meditative trance, analyzing the information at my disposal, devising paths and strategies, creating plans, back-up plans, back-up back-up plans—

Footsteps. I heard footsteps. There was a presence here. Longer pauses between steps indicated a longer stride, an adult, at least 5'6". Scurrying. Busy. A maid.

Perfect.

As she rounded the corner I grabbed her roughly by the arm, twisting it behind her back as I pinned her face first into the wall, a dagger materializing in my hand placed against the small of her back.

Oh, how I regret the days I took being big enough to hold a dagger to someone's throat for granted. Those were the days.

"Where is the princess?" I demanded, my voice carefully crafted to be intimidatingly devoid of emotion. The voice of someone who could kill you, and then go home to enjoy dinner with his family and feel nothing. I poked her lightly with the knife as I did so, making perfectly clear exactly how this was going to go.

"I… I…", oh god, she was tearing up, I could hear it. Weeping woman: my only weakness. Damn my chivalrous soul.

"I'm not here to hurt her," I said, more gently. "We're here to rescue her. So she can live a happy, normal life, with her father." _However long that would be._ "We only want what's best for her. Can you tell me where to find her?"

The maid seemed to hesitate briefly, taking deep, wavering breaths like she was still on the edge of tears. Finally, she whispered, "Lady Ilya is in her room, in the East Wing. Follow the main hall until you see a suit of armor, then take a left and up the stairs. Her's is the thirteenth door to the left."

"Thank you," I whispered, backing away as my dagger dissolved into particles of light. By the time she turned around, I was gone.

She was alone again.

/

Like a shadow, I flitted through rooms and hallways, past a patient suit of armor, fast as a trick of the eye. A left turn. Up the stairs. And as I approached the thirteenth door to the left, cracked open just a tad like someone had slammed it hard enough it bounced back, candle light peeking through, I head a light whimpering. It was halting, breathy, little-girl cry, soft and shy, like she was afraid to be heard. Like she was afraid to even hear herself cry, because crying would be acknowledging the pain, and by acknowledging it hurt she made it real. Suddenly she was vulnerable to her own emotions, and the veil of self-deception was ripped out from under her roughly, a harsh reality all that was left.

_Oh, Ilya. _

I peered through the crack, feeling for the first time since I invaded the castle like an intruder. She lay in a foetal position, back to the door, her shoulders shaking subtly. The room was illuminated by a single oil lamp, flames painting the walls with dancing shadows. Suddenly she stopped, taking a deep, shaky breath.

"Marie, go away. I want to be alone." She said in perfect german, her voice a mask of steadiness and authority.

But there was no time. This operation was on a strict time limit, and time doesn't stop for humans, though I suspect that if it did, it would be for crying, lonely little girls.

I opened the door.

"I'm not Marie." Her back stiffened, but I continued in an attempt to reassure her, "You can call me Emiya Shirou, Ily—AAaah!"

I rolled out of the way of an incantationless flamethrower, almost searing off my eyebrows as Ilya twisted with a look of rabid rage on her face. "YOU!" She screeched almost madly, her eyes wide and angry, underlined with sleepless nights. Her teeth were bared in a snarl.

Coming out of my roll she threw her hand forward, hitting me with a blast of pure force that sent me into the wall. Again, no incantation. I'd never seen her like this. Even in the Grail War, she'd never attacked this directly, this viciously.

This was the power of her Sorcery Trait, the Wish-granting power of one who is the vessel of the Holy Grail. The regular pomp and ceremony necessary for some of even the most powerful Magi—things like an aria before a spell, or an elemental affinity—were completely unnecessary.

In that sense, those who served as vessels for this fake Holy Grail—like Irisviel, Kiritsugu's wife, the same trait now passed down to their daughter, Ilya—were similar to the demons that manifest on earth through the reaction of the Sixth Imaginary Element to the desires of humans. They lived and breathed magecraft, and casting a spell was a simple affair of _wanting _something strong enough and dishing out enough power to make it happen.

I guess that meant she _really_, _really _wanted to burn my face off.

"_How could you!?_" She raged, tears forming on the edges of her eyes. "Why are you here? Wasn't stealing my daddy enough? Now you want to steal my home!? No! No! _I'll kill you!_"

Her eyes became murderous as she stood from her bed, and I was reminded that no matter her age, this was _Kiritsugu's daughter_. And never had that fact become more clear to me than when I felt killing intent prickle my senses in warning.

Getting more serious about the threat she may represent, I grunted, flexing slightly, breaking through the force she used to hold me to the wall like glass, materializing Byakuya in my hand as I swung down diagonally, cleanly breaking apart the flame spell she sent my way. Stoically, I stepped forward slowly, dissipating each spell with a swing of my blade. Predictably, the girl started panicking, retreating towards her bed with each step, the creeping awareness she'd bitten off more than she could chew weakening her resolve, her magecraft. She still had a lot left to learn. Fear is the mind-killer.

And when she could retreat no more, I grabbed her by the wrists firmly but gently, holding them above her head. She struggled fruitlessly in my steely grip, wriggling and writhing, her fear making her completely forget about the magecraft she'd been hurling around just a second ago.

"Who are you!" She screamed at me, tears streaming down her face. "_Who are you!?_ Why did he choose you over me? What did I do! Tell me! _Tell me!_" Her voice was hysterical and confused, and angry and lost, and lonely and sad, and a million other things whirling chaotically in a sea misplaced guilt and betrayal.

Damaged by the one she trusted most. I could imagine her little hand reaching up, clutching her father's for the first time, lost in his bigness, in his protection.

She lost that. He wasn't dead, or kidnapped. Just gone. Absent. From her perspective, choosing some boy he barely knew over her, his daughter.

I'd never had that. I'd lost my family in the fire, and though Kiritsugu had taken me in, even the first time I'd been his caretaker as much as he'd been mine.

"Ilya," I said quietly.

She broke down in front of me.

"Why doesn't he love me?" Ilya sobbed, collapsing into my arms. I let go of her wrists. She hit me, banging her tiny fists against me. Even almost the same age, she was still so small. "Why?" she asked again, so tiny and lost in that moment I almost couldn't find words.

"Ilya," I said again, and she looked up to stare me in the eyes. As sincerely as I could, I told her. "Your dad didn't abandon you. He's here with me. He didn't pick me over you." I grabbed her by her scrawny shoulders. "There hasn't been a second since the Grail War ended that he hasn't searched for you. He would go to the ends of the earth and beyond to find you, and if you were lost in hell he'd bring the cerberus to heel and end the devil with a shot to the head." That was just the type of man Kiritsugu was. Despite herself she giggled, tears still in her eyes. "There's nothing he wouldn't do to find you."

"Then why? Why hasn't he been here? Why wasn't he with me?" She asked desperately.

"Your grandfather exiled him. He won't let him see you. Kiritsugu's been struggling like mad just to find this place, and once he did figuring out how to get you out required months of spies and observation."

She nodded, seeming to have gotten herself under control, taking in the information like she was getting debriefed on a mission.

The Einzbern's influence, no doubt. A weapon doesn't have emotions.

Magi make the worst parents, I swear.

"And where is he now?" She asked, all business.

Ah. Crap.

"Well, currently, he's going to assassinate you grandfather."

Her head snapped back to look at me in shock. "He's trying to kill Jubstacheit-sama?" Was I cynical for not being surprised he made her refer to him with honorifics? "That's crazy! He's over two-hundred years old! I know Daddy's strong, but he can't fight Jubstacheit-sama! He's not strong enough. Especially not here, in the castle, where Jubstacheit-sama has all the advantages!"

With a sort of dreadful certainty she looked me in the eye, "He told me what he'd do with him if he ever found him. He wouldn't kill him. He'd keep him alive, in agony, and when the time came he'd feed him to my Servant while I watched. At- at the time, I was so angry, I didn't care, but if daddy— if daddy!" Tears were forming at the edges of her eyes again. "We have to stop him!" Her eyebrows scrunched, and she wiped the tears away with the back of one hand. Then she stared into my eyes a final time, and gritty determination was all I saw there. She would move heaven and earth to do what she thought was right.

That, too, was Kiritsugu. And me as well, I suppose. And now Ilya.

Some bonds are thicker than blood. Dreams are one such bond.

I felt a confident grin start to form on my face despite myself. "Well, I suppose we should get started on that right away, shouldn't we?"

She nodded her cute little head gravely. "I'll have to locate them through the castle's bounded field. I can tap into it if I just—" Grabbing her by the waist, I heaved her onto my back. Ilya eeped in surprise

"W- what are you doing, I- Idiot!" She demanded, blushing.

"Hold on tight," I continued like she hadn't said anything at all. "The SS Emiya is bound for take off."

She yelped again as I took off, rushing through the castle with speed exceeding humanity—The speed, of a Servant.

/

"Left. We're almost there." Ilya directed authoritatively. She seemed to have gotten used to riding on my back, and had gathered as much dignity as she could to direct me.

"Stop!" She finally announced. Extricating herself from my back, the reality of the situation seemed to finally be getting to her, "I can sense them battling at the end of this hallway." A violent boom shook the castle walls like a localized earthquake, corroborating her theory. "But- but, Shirou, maybe we should just do what Daddy said and escape. We're just kids... there's nothing we can do to help. We'd just get in the way. Grandfather and Daddy are both experienced magi, there's no way that we'd be able to—"

"Ilya, don't worry." I interrupted. She looked up at me in shock. "I may not look it, but I'm actually pretty strong myself. I'll save Kiritsugu. You just stay here and wait for us to get back."

I turned around, feeling some deep and dark part of myself settle into place, some machine of war and death that sought battle more than anything. I never let it control me, but it was there—as undeniable as the air I breath.

I suppose one doesn't get to embodying swords without a certain thirst for violence somewhere in their psych. A sword is first and foremost an instrument of death, after all. It is only when it is turned to a worthy cause that it can be more than its function. I knew that better than anyone.

Despite myself, I felt the memories start to rise to the surface, _blood splattered death and battle and sword sword swords—_

A delicate little hand grabbed my arm. The memories dissipated like mist in spring sunlight. As I turned around, Ilya startled me by getting on her tippy toes and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

"For- for good luck." She mumbled, her cheeks burning red as I stared at her. "You better not die, Baka-Shirou."

A smile sneaked its way across my face. Turning around once again, I felt a new emotion inside my chest. Was this hope?

No. But it was a reason to fight.

Wordlessly, I joined the field of battle.

/

Jubstacheit removed his elephant-like foot from his enemy's chest. The pest was still breathing, though it was faint. That was good. It wouldn't do for the traitor to die too quickly. He still had much planned for him, after all. One does not betray the Einzbern's lightly.

Tapping into one of the bounded field's surrounding the ancient castle, he checked on the girl's room. Empty, he noted in consternation. Jubstacheit scolded himself lightly, he'd allowed himself to get too indulgent in his battle with the magus-killer. Such unsavory gloating was unnecessary when crushing an insect with a measly three generation lineage. Widening his awareness, he had only a moment to twitch before he heard the whisper,

"Hrunting."

He had just enough time to turn his head in surprise before a red bullet speared him straight through the heart, sending him flying into the wall and pinning him as it exploded on impact. Dust and chunks of stray castle flew, obscuring the corpse that no doubt resulted.

Hrunting was the sword used by the legendary hero Beowulf to destroy the mother of Grendel, a deformed monster human-like yet not, who enjoyed feasting on human flesh. After Beowulf ripped off Grendel's arm with his bare hands—the beast being invulnerable to mortal arms—he was forced to fight the creature's mother, who shared that same protection and yet was stronger and more ancient.

Residing in a lake, the enraged mother dragged him to her lair where they engaged in a ferocious battle that shook the lake's foundations. It was there that Beowulf for the first time found himself outmatched. And so it was that on the eve of his defeat, he found in the monster's horde the sword Hrunting, that he used to sever her head from her body.

That was all well and good, but I personally tended to use the sword for makeshift explosive arrows. It was far from the strongest weapon I had in my arsenal—though still a Noble Phantasm, and thus indisputably superior to almost anything else you'll find still around today—it had a few handy qualities that made it an ideal long range weapon. First, it could be launched at speeds exceeding mach 5, and second, it would follow the target like a hound, a heat seeking missile that always found its target.

It usually asn't strong enough to destroy the types of foes I was used to fighting, but against most magi it would do the trick. Rushing forward, I fell to one knee as I checked Kiritsugu's pulse. The carotid artery in his neck pulsed faintly against my finger.

A sigh of relief escaped me. He was still alive. Now we could get home to Japan, Ilya would finally have a dad and we'd stop this desperate year-long on again off again search to find her. I stood up to retrieve her, and a whisper of wind behind me was my only indication.

Long honed battle instinct responded and my body responded by summoning Kanshou and Byakuya into my hands, blocking a huge stone arm swing at me for the side. Swinging Kanshou while holding the block with Byakuya, the arm retreated. The dust settled into the form of a giant stone behemoth, Jubstacheit's sneering face the only indication of humanity.

"You…" The magus gasped between breaths. "You… you dare injure me… in my own workshop?"

Scum don't deserve banter, and Kiritsugu needed medical attention far more than this bastard deserved to survive the next twenty seconds. Reinforcing my legs and swords, I flashed forward before he could react, cutting both swords in parallel diagonal slashes. Following through with my lunge, I materialized behind him as his stone armor exploded where I'd struck him, two deep gouges in his chest appearing. His eyes widened and he coughed blood.

Before blood had time to hit the floor, I'd already thrown both swords aside in long arcs, an identical pair appearing in my hands. I reinforced them, pushing their concepts to the limit. The twin swords changed, doubling in length and width, becoming broadswords with shattered edges like feathers.

We both turned around, him with a herculean punch and I bringing Kanshou and Byakuya to bear. Predicting the path of his fist, I used one sword to parry as the other slashed him horizontally across the stomach, disemboweling him if not for his phenomenal healing abilities.

The great behemoth of a man stepped backward in search of a short reprieve, before lifting both arms up, the stone hands transmuting into sleek twin battleaxe. A great roar escaped his throat.

"Aaah!—" Before being cut short by two swords implanting themselves deep in his back, just as I slashed my two reinforced blades through him. As the two copies of the twin blades clashed inside his body, they detonated, having purposefully destabilized the blade with my reinforcement.

The world erupted in white, and I jumped backwards, one hand covering my eyes in front of my eyes as light streamed between my fingers.

And that was that. A version of Crane Wing: Three Realm, a technique I'd perfected with my favored blades, Kanshou and Byakuya. Not much could avoid it, even less could survive it. And a magus like Jubstacheit, who specialized above all in research, though strong in his own right, didn't have the kind of experience or power to compete with it.

Still, I kept my eyes open and my circuits primed, wary of the potent regeneration he'd exhibited by surviving Hrunting. But the man stayed solidly collapsed on the floor, his ravaged body peeking through the great rends in his stone armor, eyes open in shocked and violent death.

Frowning in distaste, I bypassed the body towards where Kiritsugu lay, still breathing faintly, but color had already returned to his cheeks. The boon of Avalon: I'd returned it to him after the fire, knowing he'd need it far more than I would. Hopefully it would buy him a few more years, even without Saber here for prana.

As I kneeled down next to him once again, he coughed violently a few times, before opening his eyes.

"Came to save an old man, huh?" He remarked weakly, smiling wryly nonetheless. I snorted in fake derision.

"Psh, old? You're barely over thirty, you overconfident idiot. Don't try to play the old man routine with me."

He laughed, a breathy rattling sound, before coughing again.

"Come on then son, pull me up already. Or are you just going to abandon your poor old man alone on the ground?"

Sighing in resignation and resolving to scold him for this later, I held out my hand and helped him up with a grunt, propping up his body with my shoulder, my arm wrapped around his lower back.

"Bring me to him." Kiritsugu whispered. The magus-killer's eyes dissected the desecrated corpse, eyes running up and down the wounds that had killed him. Coldly analyzing the causes of death, how he could've won, what he'd need in order to conquer such a foe in the future.

"The weakness in his regeneration was that it was consciously directed. Whereas a vampire regenerates by turning back time around their body, whether they want to or not, Jubstacheit needed to consciously reconstruct the biological matter. Distraction and extreme pain slowed his regeneration rate. To kill him you needed an instant kill, or to knock him unconscious immediately. And I didn't have any weapons with sufficient power to do so."

It was that that truly made him the magus-killer. Not merely unconventional and unscrupulous tactics, or the use of technology, but also an analytical mind and a willingness to learn from everything, without discrimination, to see all possibilities and options. I'd be unsurprised to learn that Kiritsugu had an Eye of The Mind of his own, after all this experience in the field.

"D- daddy?"

Kiritsugu and I startled out our analyses, looking up to find Ilya standing at the atrium's entrance, staring at her grandfather's corpse. Kiritsugu's eyes were glassy and fragile, and if he wasn't the man I knew him to be I could've sworn I saw happy tears paint faint, barely visible trails down his cheek.

"Ilya," Kiritsugu said, and the word was sacred in his mouth, a plea and a prayer, filled with an intoxicating mixture of love and relief and fear all at once. Tiny dew drops formed in the corners of the little girl's eyes.

With a grunt of exertion, Kiritsugu stood unsteadily on his two feet, and Ilya rushed him, tackling him in a hug of such force he stumbled backwards with an "oomph", arms coming over her like she was the last thing he'd ever hold. "Ilya," he said again, like a mantra, like the world hung on the edge of that fragile word.

"M- mommy's dead, Daddy." Ilya sobbed, grabbing his shirt in two tiny fists. "I never saw her again and she'd dead! And I'm gonna die too! He told me! He told me I'll die for Einzbern's, to get the Third Magic, but I don't wanna die Daddy! I don't wanna die!"

Kiritsugu cradled her in his arms, hushing her and kissing her forehead, but there was no consolation he could give her. She was the embodiment of the Holy Grail, and she would die as absorbing the souls of dead Servants put too much weight on her soul for her to survive. At five, she'd lose control of her body. At six, she'd fall into an eternal sleep. And at seven, her body would be consumed by the Holy Grail, unable to sustain a human shape.

All he could do was kiss her forehead and whisper fragile hopes, "We'll save you, my Ilya. We'll save you."

And as I stared at the two, I made a silent promise. _I'll save you, Ilya. I'll save you._

'

'

'

A/N Ok, I'm going to ask for some help here. Can any of you think of some countries where a revolution took place in the 90s? Or any dictatorial regimes beside North Koria?

I've got plenty of ideas for how this will go on the Magic side of things—And trust me, it's gonna be pretty awesome—but in the real world I'm drawing a blank. There's a lot of things he COULD do. Beat a bunch of world records? Become the strongest, fastest man alive before ten, along with records in long jumping and archery?

Go from country to country, defeating the most renowned fighters on camera? I still prefer the idea of him starting some rebellions, a revolution here or there, but finding the right country is hard. So, how 'bout it? Got any governments you want overthrown? Call 818-1WI-ZARD for Shirou, the One Man Revolution!


	4. For Science!

A short chapter for those waiting in the wings. More to come. Also, if in your head you have any ideas for what's to come, I'd love a review or PM to talk about it. Open to suggestions folks, especially good ones.

Eggs sizzled as Shirou cracked them into the pan. Mushrooms cooked adjacent to them, while in another pan bacon aromated the entire house with a smell like bliss. Shirou, wearing a white apron with the kanji "Cooking God" emblazoned on the front— A christmas gift from Taiga, who came over regularly to ea- ehem, tutor Shirou.

Shirou'd be damned if he was going to repeat High School. He was a Counter Guardian of immeasurable age and power dammit, not some hormone addled school boy.

Unfortunately, he'd never been very scholastic in the first place—as Rin would've enthusiastically attested to—and decades and then centuries of completely ignoring that knowledge hadn't exactly aided him in that regard. And so, he was forced to once again slog through the bane of High Schoolers everywhere: calculus. And History. Along with Biology, Chemistry, English, and all those other subjects that would be completely useless to him in his life's endeavor.

English, at least, was better this time around. As he'd said before—and would no doubt say again—being a Counter Guardian did have some perks besides the eternity of being used as a murderous puppet. One of those was language. Though Shirou had never needed to speak to the locals on his assignments, as others sometimes did, Alaya simply downloaded some information into her tools brains automatically, not unlike the Holy Grail gave Servants knowledge of the language and time period where they were summoned.

But Alaya's purview was somewhat larger than that of the Holy Grail, encompassing all of human society since it began. English, spanish, french, hindi, arabic—if people spoke it, he knew it. It was pronouncing what Taiga playfully called his "Engrish" correctly that was the problem.

He heard a cute yawn accompanied by faltering footsteps enter the dining room, and turned around as Ilya stepped into the kitchen, rubbing one eye with her hand. He silver hair stood up in random places like weeds, and she wore a purple night dress, one of the straps loose and hanging off her shoulder.

"Is breakfast ready, nii-san?" She mumbled. He'd learned to interpret 'morning talk' from Kiritsugu, who unfortunately shared Ilya's affliction of only half pronouncing things for the first half-hour after she woke up.

"Patience is a virtue," was all he said.

Ilya's stomach responded by growling like angry rottweiler. Shirou sighed.

"It should be ready in about five minutes." Ilya nodded and walked sleepily into the kitchen, collapsing onto her chair. Attracted by the smell of food, Kiritsugu also made his way down stairs, the now normal sound of his walking stick thumping against wood reverberating in Shirou's ears.

He sat down as well, as Shirou distributed the eggs evenly across three plates, added the mushrooms and left-over hollandaise sauce he heated from the refrigerator, wiped the grease off the bacon and brought in the three plates, two in his hands and one balanced skillfully in the crook of his elbow.

As Shirou and Kiritsugu started reaching for their food, Ilya interrupted them scoldingly, brought to full wakefulness by the sweet aroma of Shirou's cooking, "We have to say Itadakimasu first!" With two tired sighs, the boys put down their utensils and put their hands together.

"Itadakimaaasu," they said, Ilya's high, cheery voice by far overtaking their less enthusiastic exclamations. She'd easily adapted to japanese culture, and now took pleasure in scolding them in matters of propriety and manners.

As Ilya proceeded to enthusiastically chow down and Kiritsugu began at a slower, more sedate pace, Shirou looked up at him, taking in the dark spots underlining his eyes and his pale complexion.

"How many hours did you manage to get last night?" Shirou asked softly.

The magus Killer continued to eat silently for a moment, before halting his fork as it approached his mouth, "Four." And taking a bite.

Ilya slowed slightly to look at him worriedly, but then continued to eat as enthusiastically as before, covering up her discomfort and worry with chirping, inane conversation that they all appreciated.

There was no use dwelling on things they couldn't change.

/

After breakfast, Ilya went off to elementary school, while Shirou retreated to his workshop—that old wooden shack where he'd first summoned saber, so long ago and not far in the future, to work on his latest project.

Shirou's workshop was meticulously clean, with concoctions bubbling in tubes and a forge connected to the wall. If not for that final feature, it resembled a laboratory more than the arcane abode of a magus.

Sitting down on a stool in front of his latest breakthrough, Shirou grabbed the solid black rectangle of material unknown to this world. He examined it, using structural grasping to understand every aspect of it, the manufacturing process, where he'd gone wrong, its properties all the way down to the molecular level, and frowned. Then, taking it in his two hands, he snapped it in half, muttering to himself angrily, "Still not flexible enough."

The goal of this project was the recreation through natural processes—And by natural he meant non-magical, because this material was something that could only be created by artificial processes—the ceramic from which he made his trusty bow and the armor he'd worn for a good part of his career as an "ally of justice".

Of course, tracing the material was easy. It was something he'd done so many times that it was as easy as breathing, requiring no conscious thought on his part. But that didn't mean he didn't understand what went into it.

By using structural grasping, he knew the history of the material, the manufacturing process that had created it, the team of american and singaporean scientists that had struggled for years to create this new and revolutionary product.

However, even with all that knowledge, recreating it entirely without magecraft was… difficult. It far surpassed anything being created in the modern age. Combining the best of metals and ceramics—metals being less strong but easily deformable and flexible, while ceramics, like diamond, are stronger but invariably brittle, the possibilities for this ceramic ranged from insulators in hyper energy efficient buildings, light-weight cars with more durability and just as resistant to fracture, vehicle armor for the military, to various uses in engineering and aeronautics; or, as Shirou used it: body armor. Almost supernaturally strong, indisputably awesome body armor.

Muttering to himself as he noted down this new information Shirou's eyes shot open as an expensive machine started beeping in distress. Running over to the contraption he typed codes into the keypad, trying to cancel the process, all the while muttering to himself, "Shit shit shit SHIT!"

The machine continued beeping stubbornly.

And when he finally disconnected it from the the electricity, and grabbed the metallic door from which steam poured violently, he pulled it open and hissed at the burn, putting his burnt finger in his mouth as he waved at the steam in irritation.

"Shit shit… shit?" As the steam dissipated and the product became clear, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously and pulled on heat resistant gloves. Reaching into the tray and removing the black rectangle, he blew on it as the heat dissipated, and then, leaning away from it as if afraid it might explode, he bent it with his superhuman, impossible strength. Key word: bent. Not broke. Bent. And as he lightened the pressure, the rectangle snapped back into place like nothing had happened.

Eyes widening in glorious triumph, Shirou pulled off his gloves and placed them in his "cooking god" apron, which he hadn't bothered to removed, unable to stop the ecstatic smile making its way onto his face without his consent. Raising his arms in the empty workshop, he gave an embarrassingly happy, "woop!"

Then a different machine started beeping frantically, and Shirou scrambled to fix that, too.

/

8 YEAR OLD GENIUS DISCOVERS REVOLUTIONARY NEW SUBSTANCE

In Japan, 8 year-old Emiya Shirou, a homeschooled boy with an interest in chemistry, discovered last week a material that's been stumping scientists for years: a flexible ceramic. Ceramics are non-metal, inorganic substances, like diamond, that are tough and strong but with a fatal flaw: brittleness.

"When I heard, I was shocked. High toughness and high strength are usually incompatible" in a ceramic, says Eric Stach, a materials engineer at Purdue University. Paul Hansma, professor of physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, calls the work "astonishing" and says the performance of the new ceramic "raises the bar in this important field."

Discussions as to the uses of this new substance abound among the professional community. Emiya Shirou himself was unavailable for comment, but sources show that he may be in negotiation with the US military for a patent exchange for the price of 2 billio…

Kiritsugu looked up from the newspaper to glance at Shirou across the table.

"So this is part of your plan then. I've got to say, I can't really imagine you as a scientist."

"I'm not." Shirou stated, taking a bit of his sandwich.

"They sure don't think so." Kiritsugu replied, motioning at the newspaper on the table.

"Well, I needed to get famous quickly. This was the simplest way to do it. Plus, do you think travelling the world is cheap? I can't just do odd jobs and mercenary work like I did the last time. I need some money backing me. Why not my own?"

They stayed in silence, letting the question hang in the air. Kiritsugu, in an unusual display of fairness, asked, "The people who first made this, in the future. That was their life's work, wasn't it?"

Shirou looked at him for a second, putting down his sandwich. "For some of them. But ultimately, this was just a means to an end. They didn't set out trying to make this material. It was just a happy accident. They needed this material in order to construct the machine that was the ultimate goal of the project. This discovery will only speed up that construction."

"I suppose that makes it okay, then."

"I don't think either of us are in a position to decide what's more or less right, Kiritsugu."

Kiritsugu looked up. He'd never been even mildly interested in what was technically "right". He'd just been thinking back, reminiscing what Irisviel might have thought of this situation. He found himself doing that a lot, lately. Reminiscing.

"No. No, I suppose we're not."

A month later, Emiya Shirou donated in the order of 1 billion dollars to various charities, mostly having to do with needy children in Africa and India, along with a respectable portion dedicated AIDS research around the world.

Money is its own type of superpower.


	5. Assembling the Team I

Souichirou Kuzuki was a quiet, intimidating boy, and content to keep it that way.

He sat at the back of his classes at fuyuki university. He didn't answer questions, and when he did, it was invariably curt, concise, and correct, like a soldier delivering a report. He didn't have friends, most dissuaded from initiating conversation by his relatively tall frame of 180 cm—5'11", tall by japanese standards, whose men averaged out at about 5'7 ½.—blank expression and, though they didn't know it, a reflexive, unconscious intuition of deathly danger.

It was inevitable. The twenty year old aspiring teacher simply didn't move like a human. Or rather, he moved too humanly—exactly as a human _should_ move. Dedicated athletes had a glimpse of this, an economy of movement, a deepness of breath, a relaxed, almost predatory gait. But only a glimpse.

In the east, this was referred to as the technique of Breathing and Walking, and certain sects of monks would spend their entire lives training to do what Kuzuki did as naturally as, well, breathing.

It wasn't an inborn trait, at least not for Kuzuki. It was a hard-won talent, gained after a childhood of martial arts training that civilized countries would call "barbaric", mostly because of its mortality rate, something like ⅕ if Kuzuki had to guess. Most governments weren't aware of its existence, of course. Not unless they utilized their agents.

The Brotherhood simply wouldn't approve of that kind of flagrant publicity, and would respond to leaks most… unfavorably.

Kuzuki didn't plan to attract their attention by leaking anything, anytime soon - or ever, preferably.

Avoiding their attentions was difficult enough as it was.

"Class, we'll be having a guest speaker today," the attractive, thirty-something philosophy teacher announced excitedly. "A local celebrity, I'm sure you've heard of him. Will everybody please give a grateful greeting to today's guest speaker, published author and award-winning scientist, Emiya Shirou!"

As she spoke, a short man with white hair and tan skinned walked into the room. Souichirou heard his peers break out into whispers. He caught fragments.

"..._Emiya Shirou is speaking HERE, of all places… he could go anywhere he wants, in tokyo, even…"_

"_He lives in fuyuki city… I saw him shopping with his sister once, he was actually really nice, kind of snarky though…"_

"_...Can you imagine what it must be like to be that rich so young? He's probably stuck up…"_

"_...He's so CUTE!" _One female classmate squealed to her friends.

Narrowing his eyes, Souichirou reexamined the man, who, upon review, was actually a boy. Ten years old, maybe eleven, though he was by no means an expert. He wore subdued red and black colors, and when he glanced up, directly into Souichirou eyes, he was overcome with the knowledge that he was going to be killed.

He had to physically restrain his reaction. Nevertheless, his grip left imprints in the wooden desk and his heart beat so loud in his ear he was sure the assassin could hear from the other end of the room. Panic started to cloud his mind, before he cut through it easily.

Nevertheless, he felt the killer's gaze dangle above him like damocles dagger.

H_ow can none of them see?_ He wondered furiously. But that was a stupid question, and ridiculous to contemplate. These people were soft, and ignorant of the shadows that leered out at them from beyond their carefully sequestered worlds. Still, their untrained instincts at least understood the warning Souichirou had said through his body language. Could they not also smell the blood that suffused the room upon the boy's entry?

The boy was a killer. Sent by the Brotherhood, and no doubt here to dispose of a ruined asset. A man who'd abandoned them after accomplishing his first mission, Souichirou was a loose cable to be tied up.

The boy-assassin walked to the middle of the room and gave the professor what seemed to be a sincere smile. "Thank you for letting me speak before your class, Miss Fujitaka. I am always humbled by the opportunities I receive to pass down what knowledge I can."

All the while, Souichirou's mind went insane inside his skull. His instincts kept flying out of control with the boy's every movement. His graceful, cat-like, murderous walk. The way he reached out to shake the older woman's hand, almost innocently, like a fox playing with a dog before the pack attacked it. The experienced scan of a room as he walked toward the podium.

He looked short, even mounted on a box behind the podium that had been set up by the professor.

The boy's silver eyes did a quick scan of the faces before him, and Souichirou once again felt them pause on him. Not surprised.

Expectant.

Familiar.

Had they shown him a picture? Of course they had. Procedure must be followed.

"Hello there," Emiya began, voice carrying an authority and depth Souichirou hadn't expected in a boy so young. Neither had the rest, apparently, because he felt them sit up straighter slightly, miming attentiveness unconsciously. Some did it because of the voice, the rest followed, unconsciously mimicking their classmates.

"I know I'm not exactly what you expect in a guest speaker. Perhaps you expected someone whose feet don't hang in the air when they sit down." A couple of chuckles. "But I assure you I'm qualified, at least, to speak about today's subject. The wonderful Miss Fujitaka informed you were working this quarter on existentialism, is that right?"

A few of the overexcited girls from earlier said yes far too loudly to be appropriate.

"I'll take that as a yes then. Some of you may know, and others may not, that I recently published an autobiography," Laughs from students. The only sign of irritation was a twitch of one eyebrow, but he also seemed like he'd expected it. "It seems ridiculous, I know. My life's barely started. But I'm of the opinion that there's at least as much wisdom to be learnt from the young as the old. I think you'll find that there are people who experience more in twenty years than others learn in seventy, and that there are some experiences that demand to be told." They'd stopped laughing. "Through the Fire: Finding Purpose in Tragedy is the name. All of you are old enough to remember the Fuyuki Fire that killed 447 people only three years ago, in the now destroyed Shinto District. Of those present, I was the only survivor."

Those who'd laughed leaned down in their chairs guiltily, unable to look him in the eye. Emiya continued, eyes distant and not. Souichirou could tell that though what would come out of his mouth next was true, it wasn't the whole truth.

"Amnesia is a mental condition in which the patient loses access to all or part of their episodic memory, through physical or emotional trauma. At eight years old, I had no memory of anything that had come before. No mother, no father, no name. I could speak, understand language, write, and sing Donguri Korokoro. But my identity was frustratingly empty. They're still unsure if the memories are suppressed or all the smoke I inhaled damaged them irreparably. Either way, I don't think I'll be getting those back any time soon." This was not said sadly, but resignedly, nostalgic, almost, for a time he couldn't remember and never would.

"I was, predictably, very lost, and crushed by what I now recognize was a terrible case of Survivor's guilt. Because how could I survive, when everyone else died? Luck? Fate? It's absurd. There was nothing special about me. I wasn't stronger, I wasn't a better person. And yet, I'm alive. I'm alive, and all 447 of them are dead. Because when I walked through the chorus of screams and pleas for help, I did nothing. I walked. They died, and I went on."

Here he smiled bitterly. "The sad truth about life is it's not the brave ones that live on. Being a good person doesn't entitle you to anything. In reality, the ones who survive are the selfish ones, the ones who'll steal bread from a cell-mate to stave off death in a concentration camp, the ones who'll eat another human being when trapped underground." A breath. "The ones who'll watch others burn alive to extend their miserable existence another second."

"After the fire, I isolated myself. I did not play with other children. Not when I could hear their horrified screams in my sleep. I exhibited the usual symptoms. Anxiety and depression, social withdrawal, sleep disturbance and nightmares, physical complaints and mood swings with loss of drive." He listed the symptoms detachedly, like he was reading off a chart, clinically and with no inflection.

"The only thing that kept me getting up in the morning was a memory. When my father rescued me from the fire, I thought his pure, relieved smile would be the last thing I saw. His happiness that he had saved at least one person. A Hero's smile."

He continued, but now something like certainty entered his voice, but it was entirely unnecessary, as the room was already his captive audience. Their ears hung on the edge of his lips, on the rhythm of his speech, on the painfully honest ring of his story. They were trapped on this ride with him, and they could no more escape it then they stop the beating of their heart.

"It's the job of every human being to give meaning to their own lives. There is no greater entity that will make your life worth living. There are no absolutes, and morality is at best a fad and at worst a lie. The buck stops with you. If you don't decide what you value, what you believe makes you human after everything's ash and the sun explodes, the reason you get up in the morning and the last thing you'll ponder as your breath leaves your lungs a final time—which is the only certainty you can have in this world—then you will have values assigned to you. You'll sort of fall through life, and though your body may stand straight your spirit will always be drowning, at the mercy of the swell and crash of powers beyond your ken."

The boy with fire eyes and a voice like the groan of machinery and the clashing of swords and the battlecry of warriors leaned forward, and the class leaned forward too. "You are the creator of your own reality. The world you live in is created of your own perceptions, an illusion created by your mind to interface with the World. And you are the master of your perceptions, and by consequence, the master of your world. You decide what has value and what is meaningless. You decide is worth achieving and what is a waste of life. You get one life, one time, and what you do with that currency is your sole purview."

He ended it, and in that silence you could have heard a pin drop.

"The world is an absurd place, where bad thing happen to good people, good things to bad, and, most absurd of all, good or bad don't exist at all, outside of your own skull. But that's what makes humans exceptional. We can see the world as it should be, instead of as it is. We are not constrained by reality. What makes us human is the empty space between human nature and the terrible silence of the world, at some points touching, at others not. It is not the goal of the human mind to model itself after the natural world, rather, it seeks to model the natural world after itself.

"And never forget: your dreams, your ideals, your values, they can change the world. The road between the world and human nature is not a one way street. So find yourself, or build yourself, and laugh as the world groans uselessly against against your Truth, only to find it unforgiving and brutal and immutable as the stars, and witness where it gives and grinds and bends itself in your image."

The boy stepped down from the platform. No one clapped. The silence was deafening.

"I apologize, but I forgot I actually have an appointment to attend to. Unfortunately, there's no time to take questions. If you're interested in reading more of my personal ideal, and more on how to find or create your own, please buy my book. You'll find it at most bookstores around the country."

As he exited the room, the class broke out into cheers and claps and whistles.

Souichirou watched the door slam shut, silent, feeling acutely the emptiness inside his soul.

This would not be the last time he met Emiya Shirou. Of that, he was certain.


End file.
